The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

?php
>

Friday, May 10, 2013

Water, Energy, and Trade? Who Needs Those?

by Evelyn GordonAs Jonathan noted
yesterday, it’s hard to blame the lack of Mideast peace on Israel’s
“occupation of Arab lands” in 1967 when peace was singularly lacking
even before 1967. But this theory rests on a more fundamental fallacy:
that all human beings basically want the same things – peace and a good
life – and therefore, what Westerners consider a reasonable compromise
should satisfy Middle Easterners as well. To understand just how false
this is, consider Wednesday’s unanimous vote by the lower house of Jordan’s parliament to expel the Israeli ambassador.

On Tuesday, a group of Jews visited Judaism’s holiest site, the
Temple Mount. They didn’t engage in “provocations” such as praying or
reciting Psalms, but to many Arabs, the very presence of Jews at the
site to which Jews have prayed for 3,000 years is a provocation.
Palestinians therefore began hurling rocks and chairs
at them, causing the police to intervene. And according to the
Jordanian parliament, this sequence of events constituted “criminal
attacks by the settlers” – i.e. Jews.

That alone is troubling enough. But
parliament’s decision to respond by voting to expel the ambassador is
even more troubling given how much Jordan would lose by ending its peace
with Israel.

First, under the peace treaty, Israel provides Jordan with tens of
millions of cubic meters of water each year. Recently, it even increased this amount to help Jordan cope with its flood of Syrian refugees. Scrapping the treaty would thus greatly exacerbate Jordan’s already severe water shortage.

Second, Israel is now Jordan’s key land bridge
for trade with the West. Lacking access of its own to the Mediterranean
Sea, Jordan has always conducted most of its trade overland. It used to
send its trucks to Syrian ports, but Syria’s civil war made that route
too dangerous. So now, the trucks go to Israel’s Haifa Port. Severing
the peace treaty would thus cost Jordan its major trade route to the
West.

Third, repeated terror attacks on the natural gas pipeline from Egypt
left Jordan, like Israel, with a severe gas shortage that caused
electricity prices to skyrocket. In Jordan, where Egyptian gas fueled 90 percent of electricity production, the hike in fuel prices sparked violent demonstrations.
But unlike Israel, where massive offshore reserves meant the problem
was only temporary (the Tamar field came online this April), Jordan has
no gas of its own. Consequently, it began negotiating with Israel, the only nearby source. Jordan wants this gas so badly that it even publicly confirmed
the talks, though normally, it prefers to hide its dealings with
Israel. Yet these talks would clearly go nowhere if the peace treaty
were shelved.

In short, Israel is currently vital to three of Jordan’s greatest
needs: water, energy, and trade. And while ordinary Jordanians probably
don’t know that, its parliamentarians almost certainly do. Yet even so,
they voted unanimously to expel Israel’s ambassador – a step
that, if actually carried out (King Abdullah has made clear it won’t
be), would endanger all three of these benefits, with devastating
consequences for Jordan’s economy.

To Jordan’s parliamentarians, the country’s well-being evidently
comes a very distant second to the desire to keep Jews from visiting
Judaism’s holiest site. That order of priorities would be inconceivable
to most Westerners, but it’s extremely common in the Middle East. And
that, more than any disagreement about land, explains why Mideast peace
remains a distant dream.Evelyn GordonSource: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/05/09/water-energy-and-trade-who-needs-those/Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.